Sensors and Instrumentation and Nondestructive Evaluation

Biomedical Applications

Biosensor for revival of sudden cardiac arrest victims

In collaboration from the Emergency
Resuscitation Research Center of the University of Chicago, we are developing a novel biosensor
for an important medical application - revival of sudden cardiac arrest victims. Oxidants such as
reactive oxygen species and reactive nitrogen species play critical roles in cell signaling and cell
injury during pathologic conditions such as ischemia/reperfusion. Specifically, two of the most diffusible
oxidants, hydrogen peroxide and nitric oxide, play important roles in ischemia/reperfusion injury.
The objective of our work is to develop a highly sensitive real-time sensor for noninvasively measuring
these species in human-exhaled breath as biomarkers of cell injury.
Read: Biosensor for revival of sudden cardiac arrest victims

Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago’s (UC) Emergency Resuscitation
Center (ERC) and the Urologic Surgery Section are developing a technology that could help in saving
stroke and cardiac arrest victims and in performing various surgical procedures. The team has developed
an ice slurry coolant — a saline-ice mixture that may be injected into a patient’s body
for rapid cooling of vital organs and tissues. One version of ice slurry is an equal mix of ultra-small
(equivalent to the diameter of a human hair) ice particles and a salt water liquid carrier.
Learn
more about our research activities in the field of medical ice slurry coolants